Until his recent retirement, Harris, 55, was a union leader representing some 2,000 Border Patrol agents in the San Diego sector who work or live in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. During the latter part of his 22-year career he also often served as a tour guide of sorts, leading myriad groups – from Congress members to media to environmentalists – to interesting spots along the Southern California stretch of border that divides the United States and Mexico. Along the way, Harris often offered a glimpse into the thinking of the men and women whose job it is to patrol it.

Candid, articulate and passionate, Harris does not shy from offering his own views on the border wall, the asylum system, or the president that has made such matters his signature issues.

Some of those views – and the events that shaped them – might be surprising.

Different eras of migration

For beginners, Harris’ wife, Norma Harris, arrived in the United States illegally from Mexico, as a child with her family, in the 1970s. She and her family have since become citizens, something that would be harder if they came today.

The irony is not lost on Harris, who has spent his entire adult life in law enforcement. His marriage might never have happened had his wife’s family been booted from the country decades ago by someone who carried a badge similar to the one he’s worn.

Harris doesn’t necessarily justify her family’s crossing, but notes that times were different then. Over the past few decades, drug cartels and narcotics have increased. As a result, he said, the population of people coming into the country has become “more vicious; you have more gang bangers and criminals mixed in.”

Since the ’70s, he added, there’s also been a “major game changer” – Sept. 11.

“Times do change,” Harris said. “Nine-eleven made us realize we need to do a better job who we’re giving visas to, and who we are allowing to come over.”

If his wife were an unauthorized immigrant today, they wouldn’t be married.

“I can’t be with someone who is here illegally,” Harris said. “I would be fired.”

Posted!

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

The U.S. Border Patrol held a Mobile Field Force Training Exercise Friday in Anapra in Sunland Park, New Mexico. The Border Patrol is preparing for large numbers of migrants from Central America who have already had clashes with law enforcement in the Tijuana area. Mark Lambie / El Paso Times

Interested in this topic? You may also want to view these photo galleries:

He’s a Republican who doesn’t care much for President Donald Trump. She’s a Democrat who voted for Trump because of his support for the military and law enforcement. Ultimately, Harris did, too.

“It was going to be my first election when I was going to sit it out,” he said. “But Norma said I should vote.”

When the National Border Patrol Council endorsed Trump’s candidacy, Harris wasn’t thrilled, but he understood the rationale.

“You had a guy who for the first time ever said ‘I’m going to consider you, National Border Patrol Council, as subject matter experts on how to secure the border’,” Harris said. “We never had anybody do that before.”

But matters of national security and defense should not be partisan, he said. Borders, he added, should be maintained and replaced as needed; and not just because Trump says so.

“It’s become politicized.”

Chase, catch, repeat

Harris remembers the days, two decades ago, when agents in the San Diego sector would arrest more than 1,000 Mexicans every night. The migrants would run across the border. He and his fellow agents would chase them down and bring them back. Then, the migrants would run again. The cat and mouse game was repeated most nights for many years.

“It was almost pointless,” Harris said of a border he called “no man’s land.”

“You don’t see that anymore,” Harris added.

“Over the years, we’ve gained more control, with more fencing and more agents.”

By comparison, in a typical 24-hour cycle, agents now arrest about 100 people crossing illegally in the San Diego sector, he estimated. And that number was substantially lower before large Central American migrant caravans began arriving last year in Tijuana, when an average day saw 30 to 40 arrests.

But the fewer number of illegal crossings is not the only thing that has changed over the years.

For one, much of the border activity between Tijuana and California is now controlled by Mexican drug cartels, he said.

“There’s no more mom and pop smuggling organizations.”

Another thing that has changed is who is crossing.

While the Tijuana stretch of the U.S./Mexico border has always lured migrants from all over the world, Mexicans historically accounted for most of those trying to cross. But in recent years – as Mexico’s economy has come to include higher paying jobs and as conditions in other countries have deteriorated – Mexican migrants have been replaced by Central Americans, primarily from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

While the number of people from all countries crossing illegally into the United States via Mexico has dipped to its lowest level in more than a decade, the demographics of new arrivals has shifted. In 2016, 5.4 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico lived in the U.S., down from 6.9 million in 2007, according to Pew Research Center. During roughly the same period, the number of Central American immigrants living in the United States has jumped from about 2.7 million to about 3.4 million, according to data from the Migration Policy Institute.

CLOSE

President Trump said a "see-through wall of steel" will be stronger and "more beautiful" than a concrete border wall.
USA TODAY

The caravan of asylum seekers that Trump talked up prior to the November midterm (and, again, in recent weeks, as he’s pushed for a border wall) included several thousand people, mostly from Central American countries, who today are living in encampments in Tijuana. Many if not most of those migrants still hope to get into the United States.

Many plan to seek asylum. While Harris noted that seeking asylum is a legal process, he believes it can be grossly abused. On this, he agrees with Trump.

“The smuggling organizations have learned this is the new good way to get people into the U.S. You just claim asylum. Most of them, especially if they came with a family, will be released pending a future hearing.

“There are loopholes in the system that need to be closed.”

Harris cites cases he’s personally experienced as examples. Chinese people from the Fujian province who say they seek asylum because they’re persecuted as Christians; but when asked about the teachings of Jesus, they say “he was a friend of Buddha’s.” Or Central Americans who say they are fleeing gangs in their country but then admit they are crossing the border for a shot at a better job and way of life.

Economics, he noted, is not a justifiable reason for asylum.

“I think there are people who deserve it around the world. And the United States is a shining beacon, but let’s do it right.”

Noting that it currently takes years of waiting to see an immigration judge, Harris said the process could be improved by building large “humane, detention centers — with playgrounds but no cells,” along the border. He also would like to see more judges who could quickly process asylum requests.

“Let’s not make people wait years,” Harris said. “Those who deserve asylum, let’s say, ‘God bless you. Welcome to the United States.’ But if their claim is false, let’s remove them quickly.”

“American people love the underdog. But we don’t like cheaters.”

“Immigration has made our country,” he added. “We would not be a superpower if we didn’t have all these people here.”

One rock; four years

Harris said he and the agents he represented are sympathetic to immigrants. About 55 percent of the country’s Border Patrol agents are Latino, with the number slightly higher on the Southwest border.

“And many Caucasian agents have married, like me, into a Hispanic family,” Harris said.

“They are not inhumane,” he added. “But they’re going to do what they’re paid (to do) by the American public, and what they swore, to do: Uphold the law of the land. There’s a way to come into this country legally.”

In response to recriminations against Border Patrol agents who threw tear gas at some caravan members in two recent incidents, the latest on New Year’s Day, agents said they were responding to migrants throwing rocks and bottles at them. (Photographers working for the Associated Press said in the latest incident the tear gas was fired before the rocks were thrown.)

The rock throwing, Harris said, is “considered deadly physical force,” and “agents have a right to respond with physical force to stop it.

“But we chose to use less intermediate force, at great risk,” he added.

“You should be thanking the professionalism and restraint of the men and women of Border Patrol who chose not to use deadly physical force. They could have shot them.”

Harris said his life was changed by a thrown rock.

In 2006, he was struck in the head after a smuggler threw a rock “the size of a baseball.” Harris suffered a traumatic brain injury: excruciating headaches, temporary hearing and vision loss, memory loss, depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He said he went through treatments and therapy and was out of work for four years.

“I would look at the refrigerator and it bothered me that I couldn’t remember the name of that thing sitting in my kitchen…Now, I understand depression.”

The incident occurred a few years after the death of his first wife, which also had been devastating. Since then, Harris has given talks to law enforcement groups about alcoholism and depression. He said Border Patrol agents, like some other law enforcement groups, have a high stress job and a higher percent of alcoholism and suicide rates.

Union man

From his parents – his dad was a teacher and his mom a nurse – Harris said he developed an interest in labor issues.

Before he started with the Border Patrol, Harris held other jobs in law enforcement. At age 18, he joined the New York State Department of Corrections and went to work at Sing Sing, a maximum security prison. Later, he worked as a policeman in New York and at the U.S. Treasury Dept..

Until last month, Harris served as director of legislative and political affairs for National Border Patrol Council, Local 1613. In early 2017, after a disastrous sewage spill sent millions of gallons of waste and toxic chemicals from Tijuana into San Diego, Harris said he made it his mission to focus attention on the long-time contaminated flood control channel between the nations.

The sewage, chemicals and other debris had sickened at least 80 Border Patrol agents in the Imperial Beach Border Patrol station by September of last year, Harris said, and the numbers have increased since. One agent had chemical burns on his feet; the muck in the dirty Tijuana river dissolved his boot.

Harris described himself as an environmentalist, something he said applies to most of his fellow agents.

“We choose to work outside… We love the outdoors. We love the environment.”

Border Patrol agents, Harris said, sign up for a job that offers fewer perks than other law enforcement agencies while generating as much stress. And now, in the midst of a politicized battle over border walls and migrant caravans, Border Patrol agents are targets of unfair rhetoric from all sides.

Still, the agents will continue to do their work, Harris said.

“The challenge is to do our job as firmly and consistently and as humanely as possible,” he said. “They are not going to back down.”